5:45 am: Alarm goes off. Hit snooze.
5:52 am: Alarm goes off. Hit snooze
5:59 am: Alarm goes off. OK, OK, I'm up. Go get Mac to see if anyone commented on yesterday's post. No. Look for transfer news, read a little real world news, decide Newt Gingrich is still a dick. Mr. D comes in with my coffee, then he gets in bed and starts snoring. Drink coffee. Play one sudoku. Decide not to play another because I'm about five minutes behind and I don't want to aggravate the beast within Mr. D.
Get in shower. Contemplate speeding things up by not conditioning hair, but opt in favor of conditioner. This turns out to be a wise decision.
Brush teeth. Examine eyebrow. Where
Start getting dressed. What am I going to wear? Put yesterday's dirty stuff in hamper. What am I going to wear? Can't put on pants until I've put lotion on my legs, and shouldn't really do that without doing my feet as well, and if I'm going to do my feet, which I really must, I'll want to put socks on immediately, so need to choose some socks before I can start any of this. Before I can choose socks, I need to know what else I am going to wear so I can, you know, match, sort of.
Snow! A little anyway. Therefore, it might possibly be a little slippery. Therefore, I "must" wear these:
Size 11. That's right. ELEVEN! I am not ashamed.
....instead of work shoes. At least that's today's excuse for wearing those. If there were no snow, I'd probably wear clogs. Anyway, those are the shoes I'm wearing and that means real socks instead of crappy nylon trouser socks, so: which socks? Also, take note that windshield will have to be scraped, which will add several minutes to the morning routine.
Decide on a purple shirt. Purple shirt, purplish socks.
Yes, I made those myself.
Fold and put away a basket of clean laundry. Start piling up stuff I'll need to take to work.
Decide not to put on pants until after insulin. Here is my dresser:
That is not me. Those are my parents on my wedding day back in 1878.
This mug is the lie dog owners tell themselves in order to cope with the inevitable.
Measure BG, take two shots, drink one of many glasses of water sitting around, clip needles and put them in special receptacle, record BG in little book and pack it up in its little case and take it and some other stuff out to my desk. Oh shit. I have not packed my bag and we're running a little late. Here comes Mr. D, done shaving and getting ready to take the dogs outside. Tending the dogs is one of his vulnerable spots for temper eruptions. Decide to lay low to avoid provoking an outburst and sneak back to bedroom to hide out. This means leaving behind a pile of poop on the sunroom floor as if I hadn't seen it. I am wracked with remorse about the poop.
Not because it's mine. Because I didn't clean it up.
Back in the bedroom, it's cold. The dogs have decided not to get up:
Tiki
Kirby
Me too, buddy. Me too. Decide it is not going to be cold enough that Kirby will need to wear his sweater today.
Choose jewelry.
I only ever wear about four pieces but I was madly in love with every bit of it, once. Except the cameo. I wanted an ordinary coral-colored cameo of a woman in silhouette, and Mr. D got me a blue one (blue? really?) commemorating some anniversary at Mount Vernon. Also, it's heavy and horizontal and the pin does not distribute the weight of the piece well, so it's hard to wear. I dress so casually that I have to wear jewelry or I look like a slob. Choose necklace Mr. D got me for Valentine's Day last year. Choose bracelets and earrings. Decide to wear wedding rings.
OK, so here's the thing about the wedding rings. So when I'm peeved at Mr. D, one of my very mature pouting techniques is to not wear the rings. Then one of the prongs on the emerald snagged on something and broke so I couldn't wear it for a while, but then I got it fixed so now I can. Lately, I've been in favor of wearing them because I've got a nice manicure and my hands look relatively pretty, considering, plus no one ever notices my little "statements" so why bother with the petty protests?
Continue listening to Mr. D and the dogs in the other room to monitor the karma out there and decide when it's safe to come out and pack my bag. He's still mucking around, so put on makeup and dry hair. Sort of. Not really. I put a glob of product in my hair and I run a dryer through it and I give the bangs and face-framing bits a touch of the round brush, but what I'm going for is mitigating the mess a little and getting it dry enough so I won't die of frostbite before I get to work. If that counts, then I dry my hair.
After that, I don't hear anything, so I collect my junk and go out to pack. Mistake. Kirby is being finicky and won't eat out of his dog dish. Mr. D is on the floor feeding him dog food in chunks by hand. And blocking the passage. If my presence is noted, Kirby may decide to pay attention to me instead of food and that could lead to all sorts of drama, so I slink back to my room to wait.
[Footnote: If you didn't know, Kirby is ill and has lost weight. He used to be a 28 pound dog. Now he's a bony and frail 19 pounds. It's really important for household morale to make sure he's eating.]
Survey bedroom for potential problems. Spot one:
Tiki can reach that magazine. If he gets bored, he'll shred it and I'll have a mess to clean up. Move magazine and otherwise beagle-proof room.
It is now safe to pack bag. Decide to wear Bianconeri scarf because zebra stripes are always in fashion.
Decide not to wear Azzurri warm-up jacket and go for real coat instead. And mittens, because it's cold and the windshield will have to be scraped.
Trek down to car, going the front way, because the back way is slippery. Turn on car then get out to drop Netflix in the mailbox. I'd help scrape, OK, but the second scraper broke and Mr. D doesn't think we need a second scraper (or a second snow shovel, but that's another story) so getting a replacement one for me to use means planning and making a special trip when he's not around so there won't be pouting about unnecessary errand-running. One scraper? Fine. You do the scraping from now on.
Please note the cold hands. I've knitted him probably 10 pairs of mittens.
Cannot go anywhere. Windshield is totally fogged.
Mr. D usually just goes anyway, but I'm driving and I like to see where I'm going. Trip is going well. Usually fret about which lane to be in. The left lane poses a 50-50 chance of getting trapped behind a line of teachers turning left to take the back way into the high school parking lot. But if I chose the right lane, I could get stuck behind a bus, or I might not be able to switch back to left in time to make the exit. Choose the left lane and it turns out the way is clear. You have chosen wisely.
I decide it's too cold for the fuzz to be waiting at the bottom of the ramp to catch HOV violators, but I'm wrong. They are there, but they are in the car, not standing outside actually counting passengers.
The trip on the highway is smooth. The bridge crossing is uneventful. We come up from the tunnel into the city.
For about 15 years, this sign said "When children are present." And nothing else. This was always a source of amusement for me, but then they fixed it by adding the "SLOW." It's not the same now. *sigh* That'd the lovely Office of Personnel Management building there in the background. When I was a litigator and traveled a lot, I learned you could always find the local federal building by looking for the building with architecture like that. Or else like the Postal Service HQ building, known locally as "The Pink Palace." It never failed me.
I now have lane decisions to make. If I follow the lane markers precisely, I may end up stuck behind a double-parked delivery van, so I prefer to fudge the lanes, but I can't if there are other cars, so I look ahead to see if there is a truck.
Yes, there is. I change lanes so I can follow the stupid and inconvenient lane markings, then I have to change lanes back once I'm past the truck.
Drop off Mr. D at Metro.
Um, everyone knows that Metro is our subway system, right? I thought so. Anyway, I make my turn onto 16th Street. There's no protester at Planned Parenthood today. There's usually just one, and whoever it may be, it's always an old white guy. Only people with no jobs can spend all day picketing Planned Parenthood, and it always strikes me that the loudest and most determined protesters are the ones who have zero practical stake in the debate. Easy for you to say there should be no right to choose when you'll never be in a situation where you might have to choose. But perhaps I should move on.
When I get to the garage, some moron is confused by the ticket machine at the parking garage, so I get to wait in the street for Halfwit to figure out that he's supposed to hit the BIG GREEN BUTTON. While waiting, hey, here's my street!
I can't get my parking space. Bummer. I park in third-choice spot and then retrieve my crap from the back seat.
Total commute 24 minutes=pretty good. Now I must wait for elevator, a process fraught with drama. Because of my hearing impairment, I have no sense of directional hearing, so I can't tell which elevator dinged. Plus sometimes they don't ding at all. I end up wandering around, looking up furtively to see what's what. I probably look like I'm trying to smuggle nukes in or something.
I make it upstairs. Here is the long hallway.
My office is all the way at the end and around the corner to the right. You know, I've worked here for *coff coff* years and we've had the same "art" the whole time, even when we've moved from building to building and replaced every stick of furniture. Same old hunting prints, Hogarth reproductions, and framed copies of stuff from the National Gallery (ours, Cheryl, not yours). I once had a fantasy about taking it all down and replacing it with demotivational posters like this one:
But I never did because (1) expensive; (2) didn't have the guts; and (3) everyone who would have found it as funny as me is gone. BTW, the source for this and many others at despair.com, if you're interested.
And so we arrive at the holy shrine where it all happens.
We have new energy saving lights with motion detectors in them. This means that lights are by default in the off position and turn on automatically when you walk by. Since I always have my light off (unless it's night or something), this means the light I never use turns itself on and I have to take the affirmative step of turning it off. This happens repeatedly throughout the day as I come and go. It also means that the lights in empty offices turn on when you walk by in the hallway. I bet we're saving tons of energy with these awesome things. Much more than if we just got people to turn their lights off at the end of the day, duh!
Look at all that there stuff piled up! Yay! Having a ton or work to do and knowing that people are depending on me feeds my martyr complex.
Yay! There's more in the bookcase! I turn on the AC.
I plug my laptop into the dock and start the boot-up sequence. After 2 minutes, I'm allowed to enter my password. Go off to copy a knitting chart because it's too small to read and I can't do "enlarge" on the machine at home. After 3 more minutes, still not ready. Putter, putter. After 3 more minutes, the telephone software that I never use and have no need for starts doing its log-on sequence. After a minute, it is ostensibly "clear" but not really, cos nothing will work for at least one more minute. And finally after 10 solid minutes, I am able to open software.
I print tracking reports to see what today's workload looks like. Um, there's LOTS, and it's old, and a lot of it is mine. Yay!
Open email. Wait for email program to open.
While waiting, take photos of my wall
and my desktop
(no surprises there), then twiddle thumbs. It's hot. Turn on fan
After three minutes, I have email. Check to see if there's anything urgent. Not really. Out of curiosity, look at email from Chief of Staff explaining to the dissatisfied workforce how come we can't afford to hire anyone or pay performance bonuses or provide office supplies but we can afford to fly the entire agency in for a week-long conference that no one wants to go to except the senior executives (cos they skip all the sessions and go off to schmooze, sight see, and play golf. OK. Maybe not all of them). Explanation makes sense given the fucked-up compartmentalized way accounting is done here, and because the execs told Congress they were going to use the money for this purpose, they cannot use it for any other purpose, so fiscally legit. However, the symbolic value of having an expensive conference when people are providing their own pens and legal pads and not getting bonuses (again, except for the execs, who got their 5% as always) is completely lost on big cheese decisionmakers.
Wait. Um everyone understands here that Dirtbunny is an attorney employed in a Federal agency, right? I thought so.
Ahem. So nothing urgent. Go upstairs to look at what came in since the last time I was here.
More stuff! Yay! Load up cart and take most of it back down to my office.
When I walk the halls with a cart full of stuff, I always think of Monty Python in Holy Grail with the schmoes dragging around a cart to collect the bodies of plague victims: "Bring out your dead--CLANK *bangs once on a garbage can lid, or something*." The few times I've bothered to share this observation, no one else has understood it, so now I keep it myself, though sometimes I may chant it quietly to myself as I push the cart down the hall.
This is the stack of stuff I'm going to do first. Don't be too impressed by the height of that stack of paper. Any lawyer who has ever done any work as a neutral or an adjudicator know that the number of pages in a case file has nothing to do with the difficulty of the case or the complexity of the legal issues. The size of the file is entirely dependent on the relative craziness of the litigants.
Do some work. Stop and check lip gloss in the magnifying mirror. Examine pores. Ugh. I should never look at my pores at work.
Do some more work.
Examine manicure. It's lasted nicely but it's time for another one. I've recently been getting gels (I think that's what they are) that are indestructible and last a long time, which makes it worth getting a manicure because I'm not likely to wreck it on the first day just by going about my usual business. Or I could bail and go back to natural, but this stuff doesn't respond to regular nail polish remover, so I'll still have to go the toe store to have it taken off and then I would have to tell them not to put on another one and they'll be disappointed "Why you no like it?" and I'll feel bad.
Go back to work. Answer that email. Rewrite that thing I wrote on Friday. Read two easy things and decide they don't require anything from me. It's cold. Turn off fan.
Make pit stop. Pass Martin in the hallway. He's actually heard of football, so I chat him up about Newcastle beating Man U. He's worried that Toons management will sell Demba Ba. Hm. Am grateful that Juve is trying to win championships and therefore does not have a history of selling off its best players purely as a money-making exercise.
Return to desk. Re-read thing I did on Thursday to see if it's fair. I decide I'm right. This time.
Start plowing through stuff on desk. Ooh, that one's going to be hard. Save for later. This one is going to be easier than it looked. Do it now.
10:10 Lady Marmalade comes up on the iPod. Start jammin'
Gitchy Gitchy Yaya GaGa
Gitchy Gitchy Yaya Hee-yah
How many things are in the cart to take back upstairs? 5. Let's do one more. Back to work.
Thirsty. Go to water cooler and fill up my water glass. It's cold. Put on scarf. Sharpen pencil in stolen pencil sharpener. It used to be next to the printer right outside my office door, but I noticed that No One Ever EVER used it but me, so I took it and put it on my desk. I feel a smidge guilty about this, but no one else has even noticed.
Finish the 6th thing, put it in the cart
Upstairs, unpack cart and store it in the closet. Boss is not here today. She's a PAS and her term expires next month. Oh yeah. Acronyms. Presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed=PAS.
She's got a giant roll of bubble wrap and she's starting to pack up her things. Bunny iz sad. Ima have to go back to my real job and there have been a lot of changes and I'll have to do things differently from what I'm used to, etc.
The new guy has his Senate confirmation hearing in a couple weeks. Engage in hypothetical calculations with coworkers about what is likely to happen and when. Back downstairs.
Turn off energy-saving light.
I'm hungry! Measure blood sugar. It's low. Eat a banana. Yummy.
It's after 11:30, so the federal court we answer to has issued whatever its going to issue today. Go to court's website to see if there's anything new I need to know. Answer: No. Check to see if anyone has commented on my post yesterday. Answer: No.
Back to work. Attention span is short. Fiddle with hair. Finish reading memo. Piddle around with non-urgent emails.
Go back to work. Start reading monster memo, taking notes. One game of Spider Solitaire while digesting first section of memo. Resist urge to examine pores and police blackheads.
Back to the monster memo. Get to use the term "factual predicate" in notes and feel like a real lawyer for a while. Then get to the term "Executive Order" and eyes go all googly and lose focus. Consider skin again, and imagine I can actually feel oil oozing out of my pores. Again resist urge to check it out in the mag mirror. Go back to memo.
Hey! It's 12:40. I forgot to go to the knitting circle (which is a few of us who meet at noon on Tuesdays and knit). Oops. Oh, well. I don't think Mel is here this week anyway. Back to memo. I'm hungry, but I WILL finish reading this memo before lunch. Back to work. Read read read Note note note. Note to self: I need to get 2011 Turbo Tax. Read, note, read, note.
Done! Have Colleague backstop my judgment on an ethics question. Wait. This is really really tenuous. Do I even need to do this? If I ask him, he'll want to talk about the whole damn thing, which, if I'm wrong, would be exactly the ethics issue I want to avoid. Don't Fear the Reaper comes up in the shuffle, so plug headphones into iPod, crank volume up, and listen while playing Spider and contemplating options. Sing back-up parts quietly so no one can hear me (I hope). Groove on the cowbell and shriek (in my head) MORE COWBELL!) Play it again. Got engrossed in Spider so missed the part about 40,000 men and women every day so have to start over. And again. MORE COWBELL!
Spider is done. Shove iPod in bra and pick up watering can. Go down the hall to the kitchen to fill up. On the way back, pass coworker and notice she's got a bag of microwave popcorn that she's getting ready to zap. Realize office will soon smell like microwave popcorn and I am likely to contract a headache. Why is she doing this? Popcorn should be banned. Decide micropop bans are unreasonable. Water plants and go upstairs on that ethics thing.
Done. I'm right, as usual. Come back down, turn off energy-saving lights, and start logging in some cases. Having trouble typing. Heart feels fluttery. Blood sugar must be low. Take a measurement. It's low. Time to eat. It's 1:30; time to take Kirby outside to pee. I wonder if he's going in the house today or whether he'll hold it. What shall I have for lunch? Greasy turkey reuben that'll make my office smell like fried food for the rest of the day? Or......... OK then. Decision made. Do I need to wear my coat? 51 degrees. No. Can wear felt jacket and be fine. OK. Let's go acquire some food.
Sky is a nice bright blue today.
At the sandwich shop, they know what I want as soon as I come in, which is awesome and a bit disturbing. I reach for a Diet Coke, but then I remember that I read something recently about Coca-Cola doing some evil business in Africa that I can't remember, so I choose a Diet Pepsi instead. It occurs to me that PepsiCo is undoubtedly doing evil business somewhere in Africa as well and that making this choice inherently involves a lesser-evils situation. I stick with the Pepsi. While I wait for my sandwich, I knit a few rounds on a sock, then I remember that I did not bring a shopping bag with me. That means either no bag (and I really can't be trusted to carry things that don't have handles when I'm hypoglycemic) or pay the 5 cent bag tax. Not that I care much about the 5 cents or that I'm opposed in principle. Thing is, I have a drawer full of bags in the office but I never remember to take one with me so I end up coming back with yet another bag. Every Damn Time.
Oh dear. The cashier is trying to talk to me. What does she want? Does that total include my 5 cents or is the 5 cents on top of that? Not that I care but, you know, I need to know whether I have to fork over another nickel. This while thing gets me so ruffled that I start dropping bills on the floor. Eventually, however, I have paid the appropriate amount, received my change, retrieved what I dropped, glanced around furtively to see how many people are having to wait for me to corral my clutziness (zero, this time), fumbled enough with the bills to get them stuffed into my wallet at least well enough so I can close it (tho it will probably explode the next time I open it). On the way back, I again notice how blue the sky is.
Then I think I see Ryan Giggs in the elevator lobby. I decide that this is so improbable that I must be mistaken, but then I take another look to confirm. Nope. Not him.
It's hot. Turn off energy-saving lights. Take off scarf and turn on fan.
So I'm going to work on this post while I have lunch but then I decide I can't because of the grease and because I'm too hypoglycemic and need to get some carbs in before I fall down. So instead, I read an article about some voting rights cases being heard before the Supreme Court this week. I am mildly interested, because I used to know something about this 20 years ago in law school. The point of the Voting Rights Act is to prevent Republicans from gerrymandering voting districts to dilute the collective strength of minority votes, which it has been determined, violates notions of one-person/one-vote in contravention of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. During this go-round of redistricting, Texas reduced the number of majority-minority districts by 10% despite an increase in the proportion of minorities in the population. By spreading out the voting power of black people, you can greatly increase the impact of white votes well beyond their proportion of the population, which is why one reason why conservative voters are a distinct minority of the voting-age population, but tend to win elections anyway. That plus the electoral college. Oh, and plus their constant attacks on any effort to register more voters or get more people to vote. It's still legal to gerrymander on the basis of politics (which is why they've chopped up my blue county and spread the chunks out into three neighboring red districts), but not race. For now. Who know what this court will do? They are not to be trusted. OMG politics without a Voting Rights Act? I may have to make good on my threat to move to Canada. And none of this would be necessary if Republicans didn't control so many state legislatures, but changing that means having Democrats win state office, which they can't because of incumbency and because of their own idiocy and OMG
Yeah. This rant has got to stop. Time to check out the transfer news, so over to Football Italia. PDC wants to stay. Good. Amauri is considering offers. Oh please. His agent is trying to create a false sense of demand to drive up the price. Lots of blah blah blah but nothing has actually happened yet. Read short article on Borriello, who is going to sweat like a lion for Juve to which I say *blows raspberry*. The presence of Borriello only makes it more likely that Loooca and Vince will be sold and ADP will forever warm the bench, not to mention the increased risk of communicable diseases that Borriello brings to the dressing room. Then I follow a link and someone stupid is touting the Borriello loan as an excellent move to which I say 8 million euro purchase option? 8 million? Are you fucking kidding me? I might pay 2 million. But the point is still that Juve already has a surplus of strikers and I love each and everyone of them except non-person Amauri, and Borriello, whatever his merits (and I grant that he has some), is not needed generally and bad for ADP specifically.
Colleague interrupts internal Borriello monologue and asks me to read drafts of some of his stuff. Grump and go back to football.
Opps. Forgot to take insulin. Retrieve it from the fridge and give myself an injection. Um, this time it hurts. It usually doesn't but oh well. Clip the needle and put in special receptacle. Briefly wonder whether I'm sick enough to go on the dole.
It's cold. Turn off fan.
Back to work.
Do not want to look at Colleague's stuff, but start reading. While reading, find a hangnail. Fiddle with it for a while, then clip it off before I create a bigger problem. Back to work.
Ugh. It's read. So now what? That draft is wrong. This draft is better but that sentence is misleading and I hate it when he uses that particular construction although it isn't technically wrong, and there are a few things I could soften so it doesn't come off as though he's being overly condemnatory which means he'll be less likely to be heard cos everyone will focus instead on the tone. (Can you believe it? Me? Backstopping other people's tone? The irony. It burns.)
Wait. Condemnatory? Is that a word? Off to the big dictionary.
It's below waist level, so the only way I can read it without major back pain is to knee on the floor in front of it, take off my glasses, lean in, and squint. Or maybe I should aim for a back injury so I can go on the dole. Never mind. Back to work.
YES! It's a word. *fist pump of celebration* Oh, right. That doesn't actually solve my problem. Think for a while, decide what to do, answer a quick email, then head upstairs to implement decision.
Garsh, Bunny? Why don't you just move upstairs? Taking the stairs a half dozen times a day is good for me. If I were up there, I'd have greater probability of getting sucked into whatever crise du jour happened to be around which would surely render me crazy in about three days because I would be required, in the interests of friendly politics, to indulge the tangential whims of people who apparently don't have enough work to keep them busy. If the boss would let me say "Are you serious? Don't waste my time with bullshit, pal. I've got real work to do." then I'd seriously consider moving up there. Or if she asked me to move, I would. But down here, I'm around all my familiar stuff and I have enough physical distance to maintain a small degree of privacy that allows me to work largely undistracted. I go up there all the time, but people think twice before coming down here amongst the peons to see me. Which is totally fine with me. Oh, and the boss is a friendly extrovert with a lot of class and grace and zillions of amusing little stories and I'm an introverted grumpasaurus who has not been gifted with much patience and tolerance for social activity that doesn't include a lot of f-bombs and dick jokes. Oh, and I hate moving my office.
Hey I got past the popcorn thing and DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE!
So, I kiss Loooca
...grab a pencil and head upstairs. Colleague thinks my edits are an improvement on his writing. I puff up with pride (on the inside) and we develop a problem-solving plan and then he goes off to handle it, and I come back downstairs. Turn off energy-saving lights.
Next! My eyes are gunky. Can I trust myself to use the mirror to fix my eyes without getting distracted by the state of my pores? I decide that I can. Remove goop from eyes, briefly glance at pores on the tip of my nose, catch myself doing it, and immediately put the mirror down and move on. Attagirl.
Back to work.
There. Done with that. What next? Well, that one is a big ugly file and my desk will look better when it's gone, so I'll do that one next. Log it in. Fiddle with hair. Back to work. Have internal mini-rant about unnecessary footnote. Back to work. Start writing it up. Face feels oily. Thinking about pores again. Force self to go back to work.
OK. That was an easy one. Walk come completed work upstairs and turn it in.
On the way back, pass nemesis. She haaaaaates me. As soon as she sees me, she puts on the blankest of blank faces and walks past me like I don't exist. Oooh, "punishment." May I have some more please?
Get back to office. Turn off energy-saving lights. Let's see? What next? Choose an old one. Hey, this is a Z-type case. That means it goes in the pile with the other Z-type cases to be worked later when we figure out what to do with Z. Next!
Walk more stuff up the stairs. Oh wow. For a minute there, everything went all two-dimensional and I couldn't figure out where the next step was. I wonder if this is how things are with Kirby?
Um, everyone knows that one of Kirby's many issues is that he has a neurological deficit that results in him not having a good sense of where the ground is, which makes him walk funny and sometimes fall down, right? Good.
I could call it a day now, but let's see what this next one is, just for giggles. Oh dear. Next one is super old and involves a controversial issue. Mañana.
Next! Oh yeah. There was a procedural issue to deal with in this one and we needed to wait for Mel to come back before we could fix it and then everyone went home for Christmas and forgot about it. Need to see if Mel is in this week and if we can fix it or if it needs to go back on hold. Mel would have left by now so Mañana.
So that's it for the day. Pack up stuff and go. Make sure I put insulin in bag. In elevator, double check to see if I remembered insulin. Start the car, then reach into bag and feel around to make sure I remembered the insulin.
BTW, remember that telephone software I was griping about? Total incoming calls today: zero. Outgoing calls: zero. Your tax dollars at work.
And so I drive home and that goes quite smoothly. I notice that the sun is already going down and the sky is no longer blue. Am happy that I noticed it when it was blue. Hmm. Do I detect a hint of cramp? What time of the month is it? I dunno. This is the sort of thing I ought to be able to keep track of, but sometimes I just forget. While pondering this, the traffic light turns green. I get a little honk from the car behind me. Finally I arrive home, remove crap from car--HEY! we passed 100,000 miles on the Volvo today! and I head up the hill. No one is waiting for me when I get to the door, but by the time I get it unlocked, Kirby has appeared. He's very happy to see me, wagging his tail in an enthusiastic circle. Then Tiki appears, and then they start jostling and shoving each other to get the best spot for receiving my attention and I give them a few pats and then we all head outside for urgent dog business. Then inside for dog cookies (mental note: we are running low; refill jar before Robbie Dogwalker comes tomorrow), then read the Dogwalker report card. Incroyable! Robbie reports that Tiki made a legendary triple poop (only a fool walks Tiki with only one bag) and even Kirby did a poop. Has Kirby ever pooped for Robbie? I think this is the first time. That dog and his digestive issues..... Don't even ask.
Then I check the mail and pick out the new Netflix from the pile: new NCIS episodes! Yay! Something to do tonight! Then back to my room where I shed my jewelry, my shoes, and my pants and put my hair up and head off for private follow-up on the possible cramp. Yup. OK then, so I take care of that and then this raises two issues: One--Wastebasket becomes more attractive to Tiki during this time of the month so must put trash out of harm's way or face the disgusting consequences later; Two--if it's that time, then I will have an unholy craving for carbs until about...... midday tomorrow no matter what I do, so I can eat what I need to eat without guilt. Or at least that's my excuse. Just eat, sweetie, and adjust the insulin. Don't try to fight it or you'll end up hypoglycemic at 3 am and eating 120 grams of carbs in the form of cereal anyway. relaaaaaaaaaaaax Put on pajama pants. Try not to notice how scaggy my feet are. Resolve to go to the toe store soon.
Since I'm going to end up committing carbicide one way or another, go to freezer to check on chocolate chip cookies. Awww, there's one left. Mr. D never likes to take the last one, but you bet I will. Return to room. Turn on Mac and look for USB cord so I can upload photos. Check email. Still no comments. Also, Cheryl has posted a Napspam which YAY but also ONOZ because I haven't seen the match yet and can't read the spam if I want to be surprised at the result. But I won't be cos Napoli is going to crush the Pinks. I'm sure of it. Wait. What does this do to my NCIS plan? Decision is too hard. Defer.
Start importing photos. Turn on iTunes and call up Viva la Voce, a choral classical music online station.
Tiki jumps onto the ottoman to be closer to smells of chocolate chip cookie.
Then he tries using the Beagle Mind Trick on me.
You will feed the beagle a cookie. I'm a bit ashamed about this, because it says something about me that I can be manipulated by a creature with such a tiny brain, but I give him a crumb after making sure there's no chocolate in there. He gobbles it.
Start typing. Tiki is done obsessing about the chocolate chip cookie, but he can reach the table from his perch on the ottoman, and he uses his cold, wet nose to try to persuade my mouse hand to stop mousing and start scritching Tiki. The mouse hand obliges for a while, but Tiki's nose keeps coming back for more. He actually scoops his nose under my hand and and flips his nose up so my hand (in theory) flies up and lands on the back of his head where I am meant to commence scritches. It's adorable. Kirby, our resident slow learner, has picked up this behavior and tries it once or twice a month. Tiki works it a couple dozen times a day. Dogs are settled down nearby, so I commence to write.
Go on over to LJ and HEY! Cheryl has 9 comments already and I have......zero. No one likes me. Everyone hates Juve and my posts are boring and no one reads them except Cheryl and she's just trying to be nice. *sniffle* OK, the last one was boring, but jeez. It included a suck-up to Martha and I hoped..... Oh dear, let the insecurity thing go. Click on over, "restore draft" and edit.
Type type type. Tiki gets up and comes over for some attention. Oblige him for a while. He returns to his dog bed. His dinnertime tummy alarm clock is going off. He knows it's dark and he starts looking for Mr. D to come home, which will be in about........28 minutes, more or less.
Resume typing. Try to add an image, but have not put photos on photobucket yet. Start exporting. *sigh*
Resume typing. Why is export taking so long?
Resume typing. VLV sucks tonight. Turn it off and open up playlist. Bon Jovi! Yay! Pure cheese.
I seen a million faces and I rocked them all cos I'm a cowboyyyyy
Tiki comes over for some loving. He gets some. I tell him it's five more minutes to Mr. D gets home. He decides on a stare down, but I AM UNMOVED.
Kirby comes over to see why Tiki is getting attention. OMG Reaper is on again.
*Bunny rocks out with her white man's overbite*
*Bunny hits replay*
MORE COWBELL!, she shrieks, cos no one is here to mock her. Yet. 2 more minutes.
Typing typing, hit replay...
Tiki is sitting up pointed towards the door. Mr. D. is four minutes late. A dollar says there was a Metro Apocalypse on the way home. I reach over and scratch Tiki's butt. He wags.
Annnnd Mr. D is home. He greets the dogs.
Kirby is in ecstasy.
TANGENT: Let's not get all sad now, but we are awaiting the results of tests to confirm that Kirby has cancer again. We're pretty sure he does. I am really going to miss his little welcome home ceremony when he's gone.
And hello to Tiki.
Mr. D notices the music and says "Reaper." I say "More cowbell" and he chuckles.
He and the dogs go off to do whatever. I type. Typing, typing. My feet are cold. Get up and put on slippers. Resume typing. The dogs have returned after their supper and I reach for the camera and knock over a stack of stuff. Then I knock over more stuff in an effort to retrieve the stuff I knocked over.
This...
..is what I wanted to photograph: Tiki going at his favorite chew toy..
OK, so everyone knows that the favorite chew toy is discontinued or something and we can't find it any more so I went online and bought a case of them for Christmas, right?
OMG. It's almost nine. I have been parked in this chair for hours, oblivious. That's two days in a row where I was too busy writing to do any knitting.
Go over to check to see if I have any comments. No.
OK, here's what's going to happen for the rest of the night. I'll fiddle with formatting and get the post up. I'll take my injections and swallow my pills and maybe have some dessert if there's any left in the fridge and then I'm going to put on my jammies and get into bed with the Mac and watch NCIS on DVD until about 10 or so. Then I'll check to see if there are any comments. Then Ill check my email. Then the weather. Then I'll ask myself what for the love of Mike am I doing, and I will turn everything off and go to sleep.
And this was Tuesday, as lived by Dirtbunny.
Ciao.
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